Alan Patrick Herbert

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you’re doing, but what you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself.

A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.

My attitude is never to be satisfied, never enough, never.

What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.

You cannot settle the problems of Europe by long-distance telephone calls and telegrams. Round the table we must get!

What I greatly hope for these children everywhere, is a new attitude toward life–free from the gullibility which thinks we can get something for nothing; free from the greed which thinks any permanent good can come of overreaching others; and, above all, expectant of change, so that when life gives them a jolt they will be fully prepared to push on eagerly along new lines.

Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

Be not afraid of going slowly, be afraid only of standing still.

In the dime stores and bus stations, people talk of situations, read books, repeat quotations, draw conclusions on the wall.

I can’t understand why a person will take a year to write a novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars.

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.

This is the time. This is the place. This is the vastness. Right here is paradise. Always. Always.